


Quiet Reflection

by synonym



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 08:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10533006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synonym/pseuds/synonym
Summary: Bunny reflects on Raffles at a train station one rainy afternoon.





	

When I think back to the days of my youth, when I think back to when I first laid eyes on him, I had been young and awkward, fumbling around with no grace whilst he was the exact opposite; everything he did seemed captivating and charming, intentful and masterful. When my peers talked of finding the perfect lady to hopelessly in love with, my thoughts went strictly to him. I suppose I should have known then, but it remains a ghastly sin and I could have never of guessed I would be where I am, right in this very moment. I should feel something akin to shame, but I am only able to muster up a semblance of ache at whatever a person wishes to deem these feelings, love or desire or affection, at the very fact that it will forever go unrequited and I am doomed to live in the knowledge I can only ever offer him a partial honesty. A half truth.

I love him more than anything, even in this moment in the downpour of this rainy afternoon, as he grumbles about the train we missed and I watch as he wipes the liquid from his jaw that will inevitably finds its way there once more, and his eyes look mesmerizing in the light but ever-greyed outdoors. I love him, as a friend, as a mentor, as a complex, ever changing man that I wish I could attach myself to one of his limbs, whichever one he preferred, and never leave his side. He cares for me, of that I’m sure, but it is nothing close to what I wish he felt, however at least he desired me in his world, as a useful companion. It was enough as sometimes he smiles at me and my heart feels like it might burst with the adoration painted on his face, and I can live with the idea that, although I may never share him intimately, I had a piece of him that no one else was even privy to. 

“It seems, my boy, that we will be here awhile yet,” He beckons me to a bench nearby and we stroll over, sitting ourselves down while the rain soaks through our clothes. We are in a sea of umbrellas and it only makes the rain louder as it hits each one. 

He takes off his coat, “We did not adequately prepare for such weather, it might make us poor Englishmen, I fear,”

I cannot help but let out a laugh at his sardonic baritone, “Indeed, I too fear you may be right on the money,”

He holds the coat over both of our heads in a sudden motion, “Come closer, Bunny, you are much too far away and it will be a slight strain in the long term,”

My first instinct is to adamantly refuse his kind gesture, assuring him that it won’t be long until the next train and he did not have to trouble himself with the arduous task, but those words die on my lips at his intent yet soft expression that displayed itself in his brows and glacier eyes. I move my body closer to his, my ear resting ever slightly against chest due to his much taller disposition, and I find my own chest increasing the rhythm of my beating heart in time with the rain. His arm is around my shoulders to cover both of our figures and I can feel his breath moving strands of my hair in a slow pattern. When I breathe in against his shirt, my senses are filled with smoke, and oak, and something that brings me back to when I first helped him climb back over the wall of the school and he fell into me. I mistakenly tripped him in the dark as we were clamoring back into the building. I would identify it, if it had a distinct connection to an object, but to me it was simply him. 

I cock my head up slightly, to see why he is so silent, he is so rarely silent, and his eyes had closed and upon his mouth a small smile had crept into its corners. I wish to ask him, to know what at that very moment had crossed his thoughts which caused his face to reflexively show such content but instead I take the rare moment to look at his feature in such close proximity. His eyelashes are uncommonly long, there is a light coloured scar above his left eyebrow, he had the faintest dimples in his angular cheeks, and I feel like my lungs just very well may cease to function at the sheer beauty of every little detail. 

His eyes open in a flutter and he tilts his head in questioning amusement at my gaze, “Whatever were you thinking of just now?”

I abashedly turn myself to look at the empty tracks, hoping my pink complexion would not betray me, “Merely recalling a memory, nothing to be concerned of, I assure you,”

“As was I, my dear Bunny, as was I.”


End file.
